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WCU to play Appalachian for Old Mountain Jug Saturday
Western Carolina’s football team will travel to Appalachian State for a 3:30 p.m. game Saturday in the annual battle for the Old Mountain Jug.
The game will be broadcast on a tape-delayed basis at 10:30 p.m. Saturday on ESPNU.
The Catamounts (1-8, 0-5) have lost 12 straight road games and 13 consecutive Southern Conference games. They have not won in Boone since 1984.
This will be the 72nd meeting between the arch rivals. ASU has dominated the series 52-18-1.
“For us, it’s always been like this,” Coach Kent Briggs said of the rivalry’s intensity. “It’s kind of like a one-game season for us, for our fans, our alumni. You can throw the records out when we play Appalachian. This year is another big one. They’re playing for a championship and a playoff opportunity. We’re playing for pride. Winning the jug is really big for us. We feel that this is a one-game season. We just tell our kids to go and play their hearts out for a big game for the program.”
The Cats have not played since a 47-44 loss to Wofford on Oct. 25,
“There is no doubt it’s good to have a week off before we play ASU” Briggs said. “You wish you could have two or three weeks before every game to prepare, but I think our players are ready to play. Our coaches have had a good opportunity to get a good game plan, and our players have had a chance to heal up. Our schedule was a little thrown off, playing on a Thursday night then having the bye week, so it’s been a while since we played. We had to keep the intensity up this week. We had to have a good practice week to stay in good game rhythm for this weekend.”
The Mountaineers (7-2, 3-2) opened the season with a win at Michigan in what many say was the biggest upset in college football history. The two-time defending Division I-AA national champions have been on the losing end of a pair of upsets in league play this year.
Part of their problem was having quarterback Armanti Edwards sidelined with an injury. He appears to be at 100 percent now after accounting for 439 yards of total offense in Saturday’s 45-24 victory over Citadel.
In the Cats’ last game, they outscored Wofford 41-10 in the second half.
“We stated executing,” Briggs said. “We got a fumble defensively that allowed us to turn some momentum. We started putting points on the board and our guys got excited. We played both quarterbacks and mixed them mid-series, and I think it was effective. We put Todd (Spitzer) in during his best scenarios and Adam (Hearns) in during his and things started happening. Our defense caught up with the speed of how Wofford executed, and we were able to slow them down enough to do some things on offense.”
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